


Dreams come fishy

by Qelinor



Category: Tsuritama
Genre: F/M, School
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 12:57:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5417954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Qelinor/pseuds/Qelinor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Take care when you use golden (or pink-with-turquoise) fish to make a wish. No one can avoid a reward. A bit of light-hearted school romance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreams come fishy

Erika did like Haru. The alien was funny, bubbly, and, what’s more important, he affected the other newcomer, Yuki, very positively (well, they were hardly newcomers anymore – with or without interruptions, they had studied in her class for almost two years already). Gradually Yuki was turning a nice, if something shy, guy out of previous surly demonface. Erika realized she was trying to look back from her seat more often, ask home tasks from Yuki, and so on.

When Haru returned to his planet after summer vacations, Yuki lost some vigor and relapsed to forgetting even to greet his classmates (of any gender) in the morning. Thankfully, the noisy alien had the decency to return by the next school year. And not alone, by the way.

Erika had high hopes that, under supervision of three aliens, Yuki would grow a spine enough to be able to chat during the lunch break. She encouraged him in any way, started conversations, was choosing subjects and causes for a talk… But Yuki would just blush, pale, stutter and answer in single words. But at least he was smiling like mad at that.

She’d give up long before but she saw how eagerly he responded to her every word – much more eagerly than to other female classmates. And he sent her a new year greeting by email. Well, that was the end of progress. The lash high school year drew to it end, and Yuki still had not invited her for a walk after classes, not even for fishing. And today was very special, today was White Day, a counterpart to St. Valentine’s when it was boys’ turn to present girls with chocolates.

Yuki did show all signs he was intending to do something relevant. He was blushing once he spotted Erika, starting stuttering before she’d even talk to him, kept his hands in pockets, or under his desk, or behind his back; once or twice he’d approach her, look scared and walk away.

Lunch break passed by without any progress, and the favourable romantic moment would be wasted after two more classes. Erika wondered how she could compel him, or encourage him…

Compel, huh? Last year there was a large commotion in mass media about aliens controlling humans through water. Now she did remember that some actions of Haru looked exactly like that. What if she asked him to give Yuki an encouraging mental kick? Well, knowing Haru, it would not be the best idea, after all. No matter how many promises to keep it secret you took from him, the loose-tongued alien would immediately run away to ask Yuki if the redhead really liked Erika, and what was “white day”, and why did it deal with chocolate, and so on and so forth, persistently and loudly, so that the whole school would hear it. At least, that was exactly what happened on St.Valentine’s when Haru drove the whole class insane as he demanded to explain him what ‘romantic’ means. Then he had almost brought Yuki to a heart attack declaring him his Valentine. Erika did not wish Yuki to suffer another myocardial infarction at this early age.

Fortunately, now the numbers of aliens in the class increased to a staggering persons. There was Urara, but Erika still felt a tiny tingle of concern around the originator of the previous End of World, even though he turned out to be just as shy and self-conscious as Yuki. And the last one was Koko, a no-nonsense and perceptible girl, despite being a fish from another planet. She joined her brother Haru in the school in their second visit, and now everyone had already stopped marveling at her bizarre spacesuit.

So Erika pulled Koko aside in the last five minutes and described the situation in brief.

“You think it would work out?” Koko cocked her head in doubt and put her hand down on the squirt gun handle. “He will not remember he has confessed when I release him.”

“Indeed,” Erika pondered for a second or two. “Oh, no, that’s not a problem. I’ll thank him right after he comes to senses, and he’ll think he had presented the chocolate in autopilot mode as usually when he is scared. He’ll be proud of himself, actually.”

The alien girl still did not look assured.

“Ok-ka-ay. But let me rephrase the order a bit, something like, to give a gift and confess of sympathy to the one he likes. Okay?”

“Okay-jakay!” Erika teased her. Indeed, what if she mistakes her wishes for reality? Then it was a good way to check it without losing face. Hardly it was the case, as all signs were damn evident and objective, but to be on the safe side...

The bell rang.

 ***

At the next break, Yuki didn’t leave the classroom because Haru and some other guys kept him down with some questions. Koko exchanged glances with Erika, shrugged and showed thumbs up, like, the game is not over yet.

After the lessons, Erika walked to the gates extra slowly, wondering if Koko managed to catch Yuki alone, without witnesses, or would the alien girl have to brainwash the witnesses too. TV news and Internet would be flooded with headers shouting about mass memory loss, DUCK agents would scatter from their yellow armored cars and announce total evacuation...

Actually, Erika spent just about five minutes near the gates, pretending she was admiring the clouds. Then Yuki came up to her, strangely calm, with a quiet smile. Water drops glistened in his hair and on the nose, and his collar was sprinkled with wet spots. So that’s what mind control looked like.

“Erika,” he said in a low blank voice, “you are the prettiest girl in the whole school and Enoshima. I like you a lot. Let’s start dating.”

And he stretched a hand with a foil paper wrapping to her.

“Thanks a lot!” she was all smiles, even though she knew he would not hear her. She was going to say it again later in more detail. And she would have a material evidence. She unwrapped the red foil and stared at its contents in bewilderment. Some time ago that piece of chocolate did form a heart, the shape clear by broken and smooth edges. Erika looked up but Yuki had already turned away, a smartphone at his ear.

“Hello Natsuki,” he continued in the same monotone. “…I don’t care about the cost of international call. I want to tell you that you are my best friend…”

She didn’t hear the continuation because Haru was yelling too loud as he ran out of the school.

“Yukiiii!” he shouted like a fire alarm, his cute face stained with chocolate. “I like you too! Very much! So-o much!”

And the alien jumped to hang on Yuki, wrapping arms and legs around him like a giant colorful koala. The redhead didn’t pay much attention to him, though, while he was dialing another phone number.

Then Urara exited the building too, looking even more intimidated than usually. He was fumbling the end of loose blue ponytail with one hand only, as in the other hand he was cradling gingerly a piece of chocolate on a paper sheet.

“Why’s that?” he chose Erika to vent out his distress to, as the other boys were evidently too busy. “Why did Yuki say that I was the best enemy and that he’d enjoy saving the world once again? I don’t want to take over anything, I didn’t even want it the last time, I just didn’t notice...”

He seemed to start crying at any moment, so Erika tried to dispel his doubts.

“That’s exactly what Yuki meant, that it would be wonderful if all conflicts on Earth were caused by mere misunderstanding and solved by a fishing trip. We don’t blame you, Urara. And you’d better eat this piece before it melts, or you’ll end up smudged like Haru.”

Urara did cheer up, swallowed the chocolate in one gulp and strode behind the classmates. Yuki ended another call with the words, “Bye, Akira” and was going to call someone else.

Erika was still standing at the gates when Koko left the school. Without any chocolate stains in her face. But then, she might have eaten it carefully.

“I’m sorry,” the alien fish-girl shrugged. “I warned you.”

“I don’t mind,” Erika was smiling. “It’s great, if you come to think of it. He has so much place in his heart. It would surely have room for me too.”


End file.
